Journal that published faulty black plastic study removed from science index

Paranoid Android

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As usual, I'm sure the news about the considerably less alarming implications of this study will be decidedly less impactful than the weeks of screaming headlines that preceded it. I think it was very irresponsible of all the professional news publications to spend weeks reporting on this with such a frantic and dire tone only for it to turn out to be a big fat nothingburger.

Professional journalism is in a rough spot this decade, for a variety of reasons. While this story is pretty minor in the scheme of things, this kind of sensationalist scaremongering is exactly the kind of thing that's been gradually eroding the press's credibility at a moment in history when trusted, accurate news reporting is sorely needed.

Also, thank you to Ars for saving me a bit of cash. I was pretty close to replacing all my cookware when I saw these latest articles.
 
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graylshaped

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Sadly retractions and corrections are not as eye-catching (and click-baity) as YOUR BLACK PLASTIC UTENSILS ARE KILLING YOU THROW THEM OUT NAOW.

Few people hear the corrections. Everyone hears the trumpeting of the alarmism.
I agree, sadly. On the other hand, how a publication handles retraction is a factor for those who DO attempt to evaluate sources to weight as they seem fit. It would be "highly" on my list.
 
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The thing with things like these flame retardants is that our exposure limits are partially balanced on the need to not burn to death. Exposure limits that are too strict with chemicals like these could lead to more people dying due to fires. So it isn't as simple as say exposure limits to arsnic.

I don't think working to reduce unnecessary exposure to flame retardants is likely a bad idea. There is a reason why this contamination is coming from recycled components and isn't intentionally being added to the produts.
Regulations make exceedingly hard to use recycled plastic in food, beverage or medicine containers because it is very hard to control cross contamination.

Exceptions are made only when the source material is from a tightly controlled stream, as in some bottle-to-bottle recycling operations.
 
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I'm glad they were cut. Given that direct government science is likely to fall off a large cliff soon with the incoming anti-science manchild and his 'efficiency' doorknobs like Musk, having confidence in the quality and integrity of journals and academia becomes even more important.

Edit: readability

Funnily enough his NIH? pick is actually really interested in doing replication studies, but who knows if he'll have a budget a month in.
 
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torreya

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Few people hear the corrections. Everyone hears the trumpeting of the alarmism.
Old saying: "You can't un-ring a bell."

It would help future generations if there was a Cumulative Registry of Retracted Academic Publications which might help muffle that ringing.
 
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That's an overstatement with some truth. FYI I'm not a member of PETA. I looked it up based on your comment.

Their blog post is lengthy, here's my summary - other no-kill shelters will turn animals away for various reasons, PETA's take all. They will help terminally ill pets pass, including for free if you can't afford it.

They will also spay/neuter your dog for free, if you can't afford it. And then let you keep the dog.

So it's not accurate to say PETA "claims animals are better dead than living as slaves to humans."

Here's their literal claims, from their website:

https://www.peta.org/features/peta-kills-animals-truth/
Edit: To also stay on topic: this articles conclusion is similarly nuanced, not black and white. About 1/10 daily "safe" level from just your utensils is still concerning. These chemicals (hopefully) aren't being added on purpose. They don't help it function. The contamination should be avoided. This isn't necessarily the only thing that will expose you to those chemicals all day. Conclusion isn't as strong as before, but still stands in my eyes.

Also, the Journal itself needs to get it's act together with review. This math error should have been caught by authors, but failing that should have been caught in peer review.
Their reduced cost (not free) spay/neuter program was only in the Norfolk/ Virginia Beach area - and seems to have existed only or mostly in promotional material. Try to make an appointment.

There may have some well intentioned people, but scandal after scandal over the years suggest that they have "issues."

If it's called "flame retardant," it's being added intentionally.
 
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C-Port

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Only about 10% of the products they tested (some of which were single use and not intended to be heated in normal use, like the sushi trays they tested) had any of the chemical they were looking for. So you have, on average, a 10% chance of getting 10% of your daily limit. And you'll get 10% of your limit only under certain circumstances, and it's daily only if you use those products on a daily basis.

Yes, it's technically better to not use them, and maybe this means that companies will be better about filtering out bromine-based content. But the study does not present evidence that the use levels describe are actually harmful, much less so dangerous as to justify immediately throwing out whatever you have.
Oh yeah the media hype was overblown. No argument. But the fact that only 10% of the products have bromine was in the original paper. It's not the paper authors fault the media did it's usual sensationalism.

The conclusion "we should stop everyone from doing this" seems reasonable to me. If I'm unlucky enough to happen to buy the wrong utensil, it doesn't help me that 9 of my neighbors bought the non-toxic type. And that none of us had any knowledge or control over getting tainted utensils or not.
 
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muddledzen

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Funnily enough his NIH? pick is actually really interested in doing replication studies, but who knows if he'll have a budget a month in.
Here's to hoping they do have a budget, agreed, but I don't have a lot of confidence in Bhattacharya anyway given his very outspoken views as a 'contrarian' during COVID.

It was fair to question whether herd immunity might be a viable option early on; it was anti-science to keep pushing that as it became clear that was going to result in 10's of 1000's of excess deaths.

I have no issue with people questioning the legitimacy of studies and responding by doing more studies - that's absolutely proper science. It is definitely NOT proper science to stubbornly cling to your hypothesis in the face of evidence.
 
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robrob

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Oh yeah the media hype was overblown. No argument. But the fact that only 10% of the products have bromine was in the original paper. It's not the paper authors fault the media did it's usual sensationalism.

The conclusion "we should stop everyone from doing this" seems reasonable to me. If I'm unlucky enough to happen to buy the wrong utensil, it doesn't help me that 9 of my neighbors bought the non-toxic type. And that none of us had any knowledge or control over getting tainted utensils or not.

The media hype was pretty accurate, as you point out it becomes quite high risk. A one in ten chance my utensil could be unsafe in some circumstances is more than enough for me to replace it with a $2 alternative. I had more than one black plastic utensil in my house as well.

But a one in ten chance of something that's not even dangerous in the first place is very different. There's a 100% chance your tap water contains substances that are dangerous at high levels, but they're significantly below those levels to be of concern.
 
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graylshaped

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Ig Nobel would be less trivial if they actually focused on the real problems with science, like huge poorly reasoned megaprojects, the replication crisis, bandwagons of failed research ideas, and agenda-driven dishonesty.
The only of the items you list that have anything to do with "science" is the third one, and science is happy to include "disproven theories" as part of its output. Sometimes progress is made through identifying why something failed; sometimes progress is made by abandoning dead ends once they are found to be such and looking elsewhere.

The rest of your list lies more at the feet of those controlling the funding, which does indeed affect science--but is NOT "science" in and of itself. Hence this forum, where the intersection of technology and culture is discussed, considers the politics that affect those topics fair game for debate. As a side note, there are much more focused discussions of the nitty-gritty sciency things in these forums, just not typically as part of the front-page comments.
 
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Fatesrider

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"No amount of data will ever cause us to alter the conclusion we reached before we began this study."

The corollary to the statement, "We determined that this stuff is bad, but the necessary methodology to definitively determine how bad was not rigorous enough to prove it in this study."
 
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The Lurker Beneath

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Good choice. Embarrassing enough to publish with a massive arithmetic error, but triply so to refuse to back down and retract when the error was pointed out. That's not science, that's agenda pursuit.

It's the journal here, not the authors. Seems like they are not critical enough of what they publish.
 
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The Lurker Beneath

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That goes into why we have exposure limits and have not completely phased out the use of these chemicals. It is a balance of risk versus rewards, because eliminating the risks from fire retardants can mean more people die in fires. From my understanding, adults are not actually the biggest concern for exposure, but small children who potentially have more exposure due to behavior and weight.

The authors seem to be arguing there is no real justification for safety reasons to use these chemicals in cooking utensils. So even that makes the additional exposure to these chemicals hard to justify if we're not receiving a fire safety benefit.

That is why I believe the conclusion of needing to eliminate these chemicals from our cookware still stands up. It is just maybe not as panic inducing as a dose that brings somewhere close to the exposure limits.

Except that the world is full of poisons. You can easily limit your exposure in many ways, without getting frightened of the odd molecule that may enter your system.
 
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The Lurker Beneath

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That is true, but trolls are also perfectly willing to just make up the examples. See climate change research and the hockey stick graph.

It was called 'the hockey stick'. And over time it became apparent that it was anything but. So the claim became that the recent surge in temperature was exceptional. Fair enough, but it doesn't make the curve look like a hockey stick. I think Mann in his youth was more enthusiastic than mendacious, but he heavily massaged that curve.
 
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-16 (6 / -22)
It seems to me this delisting is a bit of a jerk reaction from clairivate - chemosphere may have a lot of retractions - but it also has historically published many highly cited papers- last listed as an 8.1 IF. Journals have been on a bit of a tear lately trying to out publish each other and it’s harder to get decent peer review, even from high profile journals. Which reminds me I’ve got a review to do :)
 
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talkeetna

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Oh, absolutely, this is going in the rhetorical hopper for science deniers riding several different hobby horses. Never mind that this is science working as it should! If climate change, for example, was based on bad science, this is what would happen to it - it gets shitcanned posthaste when someone does the math and finds out it doesn't math.
“Science working as it should” would be the manuscript not getting through peer review in the first place. My experience with peer review in natural science is that it is much less rigorous than 30 yrs ago, and that colleagues sheepishly justify this by saying they are so busy, don’t cha know.

Edit: The right response is to decline to do the review, especially if it’s for a for-profit journal (Elsevier…)
 
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bebu

Ars Praetorian
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60 * 7000 was what did them in. You gotta count those zeroes!!

Now I feel less dumb for sometimes double checking otherwise trivial math with a calculator.
6.0E1 × 7.0E3?
Anyone who used slide rules and 4 figure log tables at school learnt fairly quick to 'count the zeroes' and became fairly canny in the now defunct art of numerical estimation.
Whenever you get the answer you were looking for it's a good policy to double check ... Sods law being what it is.
 
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randomuser42

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6.0E1 × 7.0E3?
Anyone who used slide rules and 4 figure log tables at school learnt fairly quick to 'count the zeroes' and became fairly canny in the now defunct art of numerical estimation.
Whenever you get the answer you were looking for it's a good policy to double check ... Sods law being what it is.
Er, I've never used a slide rule or 4 figure log table, I just mean 60 * 7000 is 6*7 with 4 zeroes (420,000).
 
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Good choice. Embarrassing enough to publish with a massive arithmetic error, but triply so to refuse to back down and retract when the error was pointed out. That's not science, that's agenda pursuit.
Yeah? So who is going to replace our utensils we tossed out (ugh, more toxins to the landfill)??? Seriously, have you tried to find wooden or stainless utensils that are "quality" and not that weird-name-generation on Amazon marketplace? Note: Amazon on strike now so no ordering there. Also timing before Holidays so no stock. Also anything of value is ridiculously priced. Sure, now we miss BedBath&Beyond... Target no stock till April! ...
Also watch out for some silicone utensils that have nylon reinforcement inside...they can snap from use.
Looks like takeout for awhile, Hon!
 
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SixDegrees

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Yeah? So who is going to replace our utensils we tossed out (ugh, more toxins to the landfill)??? Seriously, have you tried to find wooden or stainless utensils that are "quality" and not that weird-name-generation on Amazon marketplace? Note: Amazon on strike now so no ordering there. Also timing before Holidays so no stock. Also anything of value is ridiculously priced. Sure, now we miss BedBath&Beyond... Target no stock till April! ...
Also watch out for some silicone utensils that have nylon reinforcement inside...they can snap from use.
Looks like takeout for awhile, Hon!
Take a deep breath. Step away from the unfounded paranoia.
 
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guavasec

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Good choice. Embarrassing enough to publish with a massive arithmetic error, but triply so to refuse to back down and retract when the error was pointed out. That's not science, that's agenda pursuit.
I've read the actual paper, and the the error really doesn't play much role in their conclusion, it was just there for some context of what these numbers mean. If they removed that section entirely, I'd still come to the same conclusions they did.

Reference dose is already a number that's hand-wavy to two orders of magnitude. The more critical comparison is that the dose from utensils can be two orders of magnitude greater than the exposure we get from the plastics intentionally treated with FR.

The fact it's below the reference dose isn't a big deal, we know toxics are cumulative and interact in ways we don't totally understand so it's worth minimizing exposures where possible, and especially when they come from places where they don't serve a purpose.
 
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SixDegrees

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I've read the actual paper, and the the error really doesn't play much role in their conclusion, it was just there for some context of what these numbers mean. If they removed that section entirely, I'd still come to the same conclusions they did.

Reference dose is already a number that's hand-wavy to two orders of magnitude. The more critical comparison is that the dose from utensils can be two orders of magnitude greater than the exposure we get from the plastics intentionally treated with FR.

The fact it's below the reference dose isn't a big deal, we know toxics are cumulative and interact in ways we don't totally understand so it's worth minimizing exposures where possible, and especially when they come from places where they don't serve a purpose.
The error calls their overall competence into question. The entire paper needs to be withdrawn, and if they think they're capable of it needs to be reworked and resubmitted to peer review.
 
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NetMage

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Also, thank you to Ars for saving me a bit of cash. I was pretty close to replacing all my cookware when I saw these latest articles.
That would still be paranoia (though I guess that would be on brand) as the article even without the error had another 10% from the number of contaminated utensils, another factor from using a not entirely reliable test to detect the chemical, a factor of 1.4 or so from the average weight of 132 lbs, a factor of 300 from the adverse level in rats (arbitrary number picked by EPA because no human studies), a factor of 10 or so from cooking the plastic (cut in pieces) in hot oil for 15 minutes to get contamination levels, and another unknown factor since they measured levels in the oil and not any food cooked in the oil.

The media hype was pretty accurate, as you point out it becomes quite high risk.
See above - there was never any high risk.
 
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The Lurker Beneath

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“Science working as it should” would be the manuscript not getting through peer review in the first place. My experience with peer review in natural science is that it is much less rigorous than 30 yrs ago, and that colleagues sheepishly justify this by saying they are so busy, don’t cha know.

Edit: The right response is to decline to do the review, especially if it’s for a for-profit journal (Elsevier…)

But if people don't do reviews, the whole system collapses and everyone might as well publish on Arxiv.org.

The thing is, for the fields Arxiv supports, that might not be a bad thing. They are all in the 'hard' logical sphere, like physics or maths. Few will be fooled by questionable papers - they will recognise them as such, and they are mostly reading them looking for some ideas, not a report on experiments.

Stuff where reliability needs to be policed, not so much.
 
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The Lurker Beneath

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Er, I've never used a slide rule or 4 figure log table, I just mean 60 * 7000 is 6*7 with 4 zeroes (420,000).

For me too. We did log tables at school, and as engineers we had slide rules in college, though we didn't really use them.

But the principle is the same, whichever way you do it. Each zero is +1 on the Log 10 axis.
 
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tsigos

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That "correction notice" was awful. Just yesterday, the New York Times re-posted their old article to Facebook warning people to throw away their black plastic utensils. In the comments, some people said "Hey, wasn't this based on a math error?" Each time, the next response was "Yeah, but it didn't affect the overall conclusion."

Well, it certainly should have affected the overall conclusion for any person that wasn't promoting a false agenda.
 
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el_oscuro

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It was called 'the hockey stick'. And over time it became apparent that it was anything but. So the claim became that the recent surge in temperature was exceptional. Fair enough, but it doesn't make the curve look like a hockey stick. I think Mann in his youth was more enthusiastic than mendacious, but he heavily massaged that curve.
There is an XKCD which clarifies this a bit:
earth_temperature_timeline.png
 
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